Fiji Resident

Four Years As A

Row

Experiences of a Former Fiji Resident

rE red-letter day of brightest hue in the life of Private John Douglas Whitcombe (formerly of Fiji), was last April 22, when, on a commandeered German motor cycle, he and a friend reached the American lines and safety.

They had scent almost. 41 years in a German POW camp.

Whitcombe was taken prisoner in Crete and in earlv 1942 was sent with other New Zealanders in open cattle trucks from Salonika to Lamsdorf in Upper Silesia. Most of these lads were in tropi cal kit and it was mid-winter when they were transported. Their rations were bread and water, and they took turns thawing out the bread by clasping It to their bodies.

Whitcombe and some of his mates were skilled artisans, and after they had settled in at Lamsdorf were given work that entailed more responsibility than usual—and more onportunities for sabo tage. They went to work processing cement, and absorbed as much knowledge of German methods as possible.

They found that if one department in the large cement works failed, everything was thrown out of gear. Thereafter, scanners and hammers frequently were drocced in the works.

The Germans attempted to solve that problem by stamping each prisoner’s tools with his individual number.

“Then we were taken to work in a sugar factory.” said J.D.W. “Mice were always a trouble there and the Germans constructed special traps to catch the mice alive. We had considerable success in letting loose the mice, who immediately went to work on scores of s*acks of sugar and ruined them.”

One of the highlights of life at Lams dorf was the building of a “hootch plant” constructed from odds and ends of machi nery. Polish slave workers gave the prisoners a formula for schnapps manu factured from sugar, water and yeast, whieh was fermented and then distilled.

“All hands combined, and we soon had a complete distillery made from stolen parts” snid J.D.W. “Of course, we were caught at last. The German commander placed several of us under arrest.”

FARMING was the easiest and most sought job among the slave workers and prisoners. After the sugar fac tory incident, Whitcombe was given to understand he was going farming, but he was sent instead to an iron foundry. Con ditions there were grim, but casting pro vided an admirable opportunity to pour the metal haphazardly, and thus ruin the model. , , “We did that constantly, and the num ber of rejects was terrific. In fact, in time we controlled the whole production of that iron foundry by systematic sabo tage.”

At the foundry insubordination in any form was ruthlessly suppressed by the Germans. , , , , Two guards, who established a bad repu tation bv robbing the boys and selling smuggled goods at exorbitant profit, finally became impossible, and the pri soners went on strike.

The prisoners were threatened with death but refused to work under the two guards.

“On one occasion,” said Whitcombe. “A Scottish lad and I were stacking pig-iron.

The guards became abusive, and I told the foreman in good old New Zealand to go and chase himself. We were handed over to the guards, and they beat us up

in front of most of the slave workers, including women. They refused us medi cal attention till late in the day, and then put us on carrying molten metal.”

At this factory the New Zealand tradesmen made all sorts of things, in cluding test models for hand grenades, in defiance of the Geneva Convention.

They protested, there was an investi gation and subsequently the whole party was dispersed.

“Anything could be bought in Germany with cigarettes except your freedom,” said Whitcombe. “We bribed the guards and secured radio sets so that we knew more about the progress of the war than the advancing troops.”

When the Russian 1945 offensive swept into Silesia there was great confusion among the Nazis. The Red Army’s guns

could be heard in the camp, and the commander appealed to the prisoners to leave quietly if they wanted “protection from the Red invaders.”

Whitcombe was one of 5,000 who stayed

behind. He was ill at the tune, and be lieved that the Red Army would liberate the camp within days. However, a thaw set in, the Russians had to straighten their line, and the New Zealanders who stayed had another five weeks there before they were moved to Prague, and from there to a camp in Bavaria.

On April 22, Whitcombe and a mate stole a German motor cycle and headed for freedom. The motor bike was taken from them by US Security Police, but they hitch-hiked the remainder Ox the way to Kassel. “We reached the air strip,” says Whitcombe, ‘ just as a 842 was pulling out. They found room for two tired Kiwis, and flew us to Pans.